Exposé

Literary Fiction
One of the most important testimonies
of the history of German exile
Hans Sahl
The Few and the Many
[Die Wenigen und die Vielen]
Novel
Luchterhand HC
368 pages
Format 11,8 x 18,7 cm
April 2010
Hans Sahl (1902-1993),
born in Dresden as the son
of a Jewish industrialist, was
a film, theatre, and literary
critic in the 1920s, also
writing poetry, stories, and
theatre pieces. In 1933 he
was forced to flee. After the
war he became a culture
correspondent for the
Zürcher Zeitung and then for
the Süddeutsche Zeitung in
New York. He translated
Thornton Wilder,
Tennessee Williams and
Arthur Miller into German.
This autobiographical novel tells the story of a Berlin author
on the run through half of Europe. In Paris and Marseille he
meets the great artists of the previous century who, like him,
are escaping from the Nazis and using all sorts of wondrous
and adventurous ways in their attempts to survive. When
Hans Sahl’s alter ego in the novel finally ends up in New York
after a lot of complications, he is glad to have escaped his
tormenters, but at the same time he cannot rid himself of one
thought: he will never find his way back again and his exile will
last a lifetime.
Hans Sahl’s novel was first published in 1959. It tells of the
downfall of an entire world.
Press
"A novel that describes a dreadful fate, the life of a displaced
person. The lonely, dangerous path taken by someone being
chased from one continent to the next … An important book
to make one think; a moving voice from the chaos; a report
full of bitter consequence." Wolfgang Koeppen
"There is a writer to be (re-)discovered, whose skill at creating
enlightening snapshots is without parallel, a literary burning
glass grinder – stopping just short of laconism; displaying
unadorned portraits of contemporaries who join together to
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make a "gallery of the century" he is a witness of." Fritz J.
Raddatz, Die Zeit
“Sahl is a gifted features writer. In a style that is close to those
of old masters, and one determined by a fine melancholy, he
pointedly portrays people, scenes, and incidents; every detail
becomes an essence of the epoch ...The Few and the Many is
a book that allows the flavor of an epoch to be tasted, a
magnum opus of German emigration to be discovered again
and again.” Deutschlandradio Kultur
Also available:
Die Gedichte [Poems], 2009
Memoiren eines Moralisten. Das Exil im Exil [Memoirs of a Moralist Exile in Exile],
2008
Sold to: France (Austral), Italy (Sellerio), The Netherlands (Atlas)
For more information please visit www.randomhouse.de